The festival of Makar Sankranti and kites go hand in hand. It’s a perfect opportunity to spread cheer and generate some goodwill.
The festival of kites, til-gul laddoos (sesame and jiggery) and gacchak gives a good chance to align with the popular motifs. People of all ages, cutting across the cross-section of the society, pick up their favorite kite designs.

Bollywood star Amrita Rao quips in an interview: “The sport mirrors our aspirations and inspirations. Just like our dreams and ambitions, the kite soars higher and even after it’s cut, it will glide down gracefully.” So there’s a lesson to be learnt for all of us, as to always keep flying high, never give up, and accept failure graciously.

In a way, kites provide a good opportunity for branding. But instead of simply printing a ubiquitous logo of your company, why not keep in mind the popular trend, and accordingly design or gift kinds that are popular? Last year Bollywood symbols were in demand, whereas kites that flaunt tinselville stars seem to be grabbing for attention along with those bearing Anna Hazare and the World Cup winning Team India this year. Actor Vidya Balan in her ‘Silk’ avatar of The Dirty Picture also surfaces on the kites.

Kites bearing the social activist, cricketers, and those of the Bollywood beauties are very much demand. The kites made of PVC plastic in the range of Rs 10- Rs 250 are also popular because they are more durable. Why not organize a kite-flying competition for your staff, and give an award to the winner to create a sense of unity and build team spirit.

Festivals like Makar Sankranti provide a perfect opportunity to bring your employees, colleagues, business associates, clients and partners together, keeping aside professional relations and bonding in a more informal manner. This helps build a rapport with the people who matter to your business. Even popular celebrities can be invited to add a tinge of glamor to the event. This will be a good promotional activity and an apt, occasion based branding exercise.

Bookmark to:

Some sleek services have recently emerged on the horizon to allow people to locate products as well as create wish lists, which can be e-mailed to your family, friends, colleagues and distant relatives, essentially to make sure that they get at least one cherished thing they aspire for. One among them is Svpply (pronounced ‘supply’). Here’s it what does or you!

What if you are in the market searching for a winter wardrobe, but not sure which puffy coat or motorcycle boots pair to add to your buying list? After signing up, this service, lets users find other like-minded users as well as friends, to check the products and items that they have ‘liked’ on the website.

Many brands, shops and boutiques do update their own items’ feeds – those they’re selling themselves or the ones they have recommended. As an introductory note on the site mentions: “Svpply is a fast-growing community of people discovering the products that they love. Use it to keep track of the things you wish to buy, or browse your own feed of products from all across the web, curated and filtered by other people and stores that you yourself find interesting.”

Users may key in generic terms such as wool scarf and gloves. They then can browse through the items those in their own network as well as others have added to their lists. The service also makes recommendations on basis of the tastes of the different people you follow. Once you happen to spot that near-perfect white leather gloves pair or camel-hair coat, you can add the items to a holiday gift list.

The website has a frequently-updated rotation of gift guides for all budgets, cutting across a wide range of categories, such as booze, women’s accessories and tech. Svpply allows shoppers to keep tab on drool-worthy products/ items that they see on other websites, bookmarking the same in their account for further perusal.

Bookmark to:

Artists belonging to the new-age, dynamic India, greatly influenced by global developments in contemporary art thanks to greater exposure to the international art world, now work in a diverse range genres, styles, subjects and mediums. Their works are worth collecting:

T.M. Azis: His work is figurative in nature. The paintings may revolve around what might be outwardly ordinary, everyday occurrences, deeply contemplated over.

Samit Das: Space or rather lack of it in the burgeoning cities is his primary artistic concern which he expresses through his visuals loaded with metaphors.

Murali Cheeroth: His involvement with theatre coupled with continuing interest in cinema helps him in presenting his images through dramatic ambiance for an unusual perspective.

Hindol Brahmbhatt: He treats his work as a documentation of historical reality in contemporary context, and looks for clues of social changes.

Nitish Bhattacharjee: His work is a documentation of his memories, his impressions, and perceptions of his surroundings.

Sudarshan Shetty:  He takes apart ubiquitous objects without dismantling them, and decodes them, by revealing their inherent mechanical being.

Bharti Kher: Her practice revolves around pangs of dislocation and transience, involving an autobiographical examination of identity.

Reena Saini Kallat: She is known to be deeply influenced by the never-ending cycle of life and nature, as well as the extremely fragile nature of the human condition.

Anju Dodiya: The self is often at the center of her work that explores various possibilities within it. Her practice is rooted in the figurative.

Rekha Rodwittiya: Her female protagonists are often elevated to iconic proportions. They can simultaneously occupy multiple avatars.

Navjot Altaf: Known for her multimedia work, largely interactive sculpture, photo and video based installations, she tackles varied themes of gender/memory/ history and loss.

Nalini Malani: Her artistic world, largely constituted by visible overlays, is fluid with everything in a constant state of metamorphosis.

Anita Dube: Her aesthetic language incorporates ubiquitous objects, everyday materials and images that together resonate with a meaning far beyond perceived local and prosaic associations.

Chitra Ganesh: While firmly rooted in a Western, postmodern discourse, the artist’s cultural references let her convey the principle of a multiplicity as a spirit, which draws together, and not breaks apart.

Bookmark to:

With the sun just rising on the horizon of the Indian art world, it’s time to soak into the creative journey of emerging talent! We provide you a glimpse of some of the most promising artists from India, bound to be in limelight in the coming years…

Highly talented contemporary Indian artists have attained appreciation and applause on the international art scene for their propensity to express current concerns through quaint and recognizable motifs. In this context, the fascinating works by our female artists deserve a special and separate mention.

Here are some of the noteworthy female artists who have won the nod of collectors and critics…

Jayashree Chakravarty: For this sensitive artist, painting is a process and means of making sense of the chaos around her.
Mithu Sen: Known for unconventional themes and forms, she represents the new wave of talent in contemporary Indian art. She puts to use a wide range of media.

Schandra Singh: She mostly works in the medium of oil and gouache, touches upon shared social and political realities.
Meetali Singh: According to the artist, she treads a fine territory between real-life emotions and sheer imagination. Hence the images are surreal, dreamy in nature.

Heeral Trivedi: Looking at history and connecting past histories with present, the artist looks to draw parallels among women in different eras.

Anu Agarwal: Bold lines, stark contours and fantastic female forms are the hallmarks of her oeuvre.

Jignasa Doshi: She focuses on the showbiz for depicting the increasing showiness and shallowness, as she terms it, under the garb of sophistication.

Suhasini Kejriwal: At first casual glance, her beautiful works -tend to camouflage the more disturbing view one begins to notice after further analyzing it. Startling juxtapositions and unconscious associations, which transcend habitual thinking to reveal deeper alternate levels of meaning, emerge.

Sonia Mehra Chawla: Her work encapsulates and inculcates the ever-fluid essence of the organic. The ambiguous, hybrid forms often suggest the generative and the sensuous.

Parvathi Nayar: Her practice largely revolves around drawing and painting; conceptually it is rooted in ideas of narrative, at different ways of looking, perceiving and the privileging of sight.

Bookmark to:

It may be that one of your friends or family members have burnt their fingers in the stock market meltdown. Can you provide them with some succor? Do you want to suggest them an alternative avenue to park their hard-earned money to safeguard and grow it? Is there a way to assured wealth building in these uncertain times? Well, you need not harangue them on risk-free investing.

What you need do is just buy a nice piece of art, and gift it to them. It’s bound to fascinate them. Then draw their attention to the fact that many high net worth individuals and non resident Indians are putting their money in art! Here are some artists to consider:

Chintan Upadhyay: He often explores the iconography of Pop to convey his subject matter. His paintings carry references from media, advertisements, Bollywood and even the traditional miniature paintings.

Baiju Parthan: His fascination for technology, blended with his passion for mythology is palpable in his practice. The artist views them as symbiotic, as he thinks both mythology and technology feed off each other.

Riyas Komu: His oeuvre refers to the paradoxes of the urban situation that he paints with cynicism and compassion. The artist strives to archive the times, as well as reflect our immediate concerns – both localized and globalized.

Jagannath Panda: In his Panda’s work, a routine event or any commonplace object gets imparted with symbolic stature that is oriented to represent collective aspirations or sometimes rigid dogmas.

T.V. Santhosh: Drawing on images and news reports from the media, he combines pointed text and repetitive sculptural forms to make a statement on both the persistent nature of violence and the way it gradually becomes the norm, through recurrence.

Sunil Gawde: His tools often include sophisticated paint materials and implements like trowels and scrapers for achieving a layered depth in his pigments. This results in textured surfaces - dynamic and dramatic in nature.

D Ebenezer Sunder Singh: The paintings of Paul Cézanne and his principles of Art influenced me immensely. The human figures (the central element of his pictures) shift time and space to locate the psychological characteristics and the principles of life.

Bookmark to:

Find gifts that are unique in terms of appearance and usage. The next step is elegant packaging and actual presenting with grace so that the receiver is happy and not embarrassed. Last but not the least, avoid a gift in cash – either giving or receiving it. Following are few more important codes and ethics of corporate gifting:

• It is essential that you first review your office policy on accepting a gift from clients. Even though it may be a small token gift, if your company policy states that accepting favors in form of gifts needs prior permission or is inappropriate, it makes better sense to return the gift. If a gift from one of your business associates is questionable in nature, it should be preferably returned or refused.
• As far as possible, never make a co-worker or client feel embarrassed or ashamed about generous giving. It may happen that a generous giver refuses to take back his or her gift. In such a scenario, keep a proper record of your correspondence with the person and try to make sure that you have notified the appropriate authority in your chain of command or hierarchy.
• There’s also a way of taking a gift back from the person whom you happened to send a wrong gift item by mistake. Now this leads to a dilemma whether to take it back or let it go. If you indeed have made such a mistake and have ended sending up a wrong gift to a wrong person, the best recourse would be accepting it and explaining the mistake you made and apologize for it. If you wish to take back the gift given for whatever reasons, be polite in talking to that person.
• On other hand, while giving a gift first check what exactly the guidelines are for corporate gifting in your company and also of the person to whom you are planning to gift. If there are any stipulated norms for budget, logo printing etc, understand them clearly. Once you have done so, you can start looking for an appropriate gift.

Bookmark to:

Below are the vital factors that are extremely essential for chalking out a corporate gift program:

1. Determine your budget first to get a clear understanding of your corporate gift program. Once you set your budget and scope, next you should define the exact purpose of giveaways.  This will depend on what domain you are and your end user.  Your budget will though, will largely dictate how much you should allocate for the gifting program.
2. When deciding how much to spend, key thing to take into account is the intrinsic value of your business relationship. Based on it, you should make sure you give an ‘appropriate’ gift. Also, consider specific guidelines of that corporate entity and industry. You would never want it to appear as a favor.
3. Just reverse the roles. What if you receive an over-expensive gift? Talk to the giver in person if you think that the gift is too costly, too personal or not really suitable to the occasion or the relationship you share with the person. However, never discuss these things in public with the person concerned.
4. Corporate gifts can serve various roles like Thank You gifts for clients and colleagues; motivational gifts; recognition gifts for employees; new client acquisition; retention of business clients; building brand awareness; promotional products; holiday gifts for clients; trade show giveaways; premiums incentives and incentive programs; award programs; advertising specialties; service and safety awards; and general purpose business gifts and awards.
5. One discreet way to place your logo is leather portfolios. It is normally de-bossed on the cover. Some people prefer to customize with the recipients initials. If you believe you have selected a gift that will make a lasting impression on the recipient, there is absolutely no need to place your logo on the gift. The person will remember you by the gorgeous gift itself.  Also work out how you will distribute it - in person or by courier mail.

In other words, sourcing, packaging and dispatching the gifts demand an on-time and high quality solution providers to manage the specialized gifting related tasks on continual basis.

Bookmark to:

While you are shopping, you suddenly show up near a crockery market. You will definitely find vases, tea cups, mugs, and specific items made of china clay there. Now, gifting items such as ones made of china clay can be a good gift just for the show of it. However, It has a certain disadvantage.

These items made of china clay are breakable easily at a fraction of a second. Moreover, if you are buying from a local market, you might not end up with a quality that you desire.

Buying a cutlery though isn’t a great or even a very bad idea; here’s what you must take care while buying them:

1. Buy from a branded store. This way, if there are small defects, you can catch hold of the store manager and get your gift replaced. Keep the bill safe with you.
2. Have a “Handle With CARE” label attached on the box within which the gift is placed.
3. Make sure you place the cutlery item in a box that is strong enough to hold the cutlery intact even if the box falls off the receivers hands.
4. Gift-wrap carefully.

Bookmark to: